Vitrian Secrets by Dele Andersen (book club reads txt) 📕

The lady looked baffled, so Wanda added, “Jason—my brother, Jason Troms.”

“Yes,” the lady answered, her eyes widening in recognition. “He left a few minutes ago with his friends. I think they went outside.” She shrugged. “You know how the students are, happy the semester is over . . .” She broke off as Wanda hurried to the library exit.

Wanda stopped at the edge of the library door. Fear seized her heart, but to her own amazement, it wasn't fear of seeing the demon; it was fear of a dead body on the floor . . . Eric's body. She took a deep breath, like a child trying to learn how to swim for the first time. She stepped into the hallway. She wanted to look away and dash to the second staircase, but she could not resist the urge to look in the direction of Eric and the demon.

She pressed herself against the doorpost, her body freezing. Eric lay motionless. The huge talon claws of the big demon's left foot were pressed down into his back, pinning him to the corner of the wall.

Wanda's hand went up, covering her mouth. She struggled to breathe, trying to hold back the tears. Eric was . . . he was dead. One of his silvery objects lay on the other side, close to the wall but far from Eric's reach. She made out a cut on his face. The demon, on the other hand, now had two silver objects in its body, and several lacerations exuded ichor.

The demon hissed and looked over, saying something in a language Wanda could not understand. It had noticed her. She wasn't sure if it could perceive her, or if it just had instincts for detecting her when she was close by. The message in the furious eyes revealed it was coming after her.

Suddenly Wanda noticed movement underneath the creature’s feet. She shuddered as Eric raised his head. Her heart fluttered as a flicker of hope flashed through her that he might still be alive. But the flicker was short-lived. His eyes had changed again to the golden cat-like eyes.

“Run!” he said in a weak tone.

The instant Eric shouted, the demon took its feet off him and tensed to leap toward Wanda. Eric, covered in sweat and blood, pulled out the last silvery-looking peg by his waist. The peg grew longer in the air just before Eric stabbed it hard into the foot beside him. It went straight into the leg of the demon and then into the floor, pinning the beast down.

The demon grunted, but Wanda didn't wait to see what effect the silver peg would have. She got to the other staircase closer to the library and rushed down, skipping every couple of steps. She pushed through the exit doors and ran outside the school. The school campus, previously filled with students, was now almost empty. About eighteen students were left on the entire school grounds, and they gathered in batches of two or three.

After looking from one side to the other, Wanda spotted two of Jason's friends and classmates. She hurried toward them.

“Hi!” Wanda panted. “Do any of you know where Jason is?”

“Jason?” one of the boys replied, looking alarmed at Wanda's panicked attitude.

“He left a while ago,” the other boy said.

“Left?” Wanda blinked in confusion. “We go home together. He could not—”

“He left with Alfred,” the boy said casually. “Alfred said your mum said he should bring Jason home.”

“That's not possible,” Wanda said faintly, and then she realized what had happened. Her heart dropped like it had been pumped full of lead.

She backed away from the boys in slow motion, her brain pulling the pieces together. Alfred had been talking to the demon when she noticed it for the first time. Suddenly Alfred's disappearance hit her like a stone thrown at her head . . . Alfred must be working with the demon. He must have let the demon into the school through the back entrance while Alfred himself went to get Jason. Where had Alfred taken Jason, and how was she going to explain all this to her mum?

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Chapter 3

Everything in Wanda's life was twirling and collapsing at the same time. How would she find her brother? She remembered her mum and rummaged in her pocket to get her phone.

Wanda dialed her mum's number. The line went dead as soon as her mum's mobile number was called. It went off so fast she wasn't sure the call even went through. Unusual not to be able to reach her mum on the mobile phone. Wanda tried again and again, but nothing happened.

Suddenly, just when she was about to totally lose hope, the call was picked up.

“Mum, Mum!”

“Wanda!”

Her mum’s voice came out in a breathy rush, which worried Wanda.

“Mum,” Wanda said again and pressed her finger on the phone. “Mum, what’s going on?” Her voice broke as panic set in again.

“Where are you?” her mum replied. The haste in her voice was gone. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I'm at school, standing in the courtyard, but I can't find Jason. He's not at school—” Wanda started sobbing.

“Come back in. I'm inside your school,” Wanda’s mum said.

Wanda froze as something caught her attention. Not the voice, because she knew it was her mum's voice on the line. Her mum was close to a few of the teachers and could have gone into the school to have a discussion with them, so that wasn’t it either. It was something about her lack of reaction to Wanda’s statement about not being able to find Jason because he wasn’t at school

Her mum had turned into a panic freak after their father died, and every moment of not seeing them or being able to lay her eyes on them alarmed her. Something wasn't right.

Wanda remembered the horror she had left at school—Eric and the demon. She turned toward the school's main entrance, expecting to see something unusual. A person with a phone to her ear stood by the school door looking straight at her.

Something about the person struck Wanda as odd. She couldn’t even confirm if she was looking at a human being or not. remembered Eric's warning to run far away from the school premises and decided not to analyze the creature. Wanda turned and ran as fast as she could toward the road. She jumped in front of a taxi, which came to an abrupt halt.

“Are you out—?”

The taxi driver stretched his head out the window, yelling at Wanda, but her attention was on the person, or thing, with the phone. She watched as the person began to run toward her. Wanda climbed into the taxi.

“Go! Go! Go!” Wanda said to the driver.

“Are you all right?” the driver asked, this time with a more caring tone.

“Drive!” Wanda screamed.

“Okay, okay.” The man pumped the engine with gas. He drove for about five minutes, watching Wanda through the rear-view mirror as she panicked, looking backward several times.

“Where exactly are we going?” the man asked.

“Kampengata . . . number twenty, Oslo.” Wanda gave the driver her home address and straight away began to think about who might have been using her mother's phone.

“You know you are lucky the boy I came to pick up had already left for home,” the driver said.

Tears trickled down her face, but she looked away from the driver, trying not to cry loud enough for him to hear.

The last hour of her afternoon had turned into a lifetime experience, something she would never forget. Her mum came up again in her mind. Losing her dad had affected her mum gravely, and it was harrowing, a pain Wanda herself had carried for nine years, wishing she could lay her hands on those that caused the car accident which killed her father. But the police never found them.

The thought of her mother and brother suddenly being pronounced dead like the night they came to give her mother the news of her father's death played itself over and over in her head, and it frightened her. What had happened to her mum, and where had Alfred taken Jason? Tutu crossed her mind also, and quickly Wanda took the phone out again and called.

“Tutu, Tutu,” Wanda whispered, sniffling as she tried to control her tears and emotions.

“Wanda, where are you?” Tutu asked, her voice defined by worry and concern.

“I don't know.”

“What?” Tutu shouted.

“In a taxi,” Wanda corrected. She ignored Tutu's shout. “Jason is missing, and I can't reach my mum. I hope they haven't gotten her.”

“Who is going to get your mum?” Tutu asked, and when Wanda remained silent, she added, “And who has Jason?”

“Alfred has Jason, and I think he is working with demons. . . . They might have my mum.”

“Demons—” The line cut off.

Wanda looked at the phone and wondered why Tutu went off so abruptly. She called back, but the phone kept ringing, and Tutu didn't pick up. Why would Tutu suddenly cut her off and not pick up her call the moment she mentioned demons?

Could Tutu possibly know something about all of this? The thought flashed through Wanda's mind, and then the taxi slowed down. She looked up and realized they were already on her street.

Wanda paid the driver and stepped out of the taxi. She rushed into the building and went straight up to their apartment. Her fingers trembled in panic, not knowing what to expect when she entered their residential apartment. She'd heard horror stories of students' mums disappearing before they got home from school.

Wanda moved closer to the door, touched her pocket, and then remembered her key was in the school bag she had left behind at school. She closed her eyes, frustrated and feeling like hitting herself. Then she heard her mum's voice in the apartment, talking to someone. Wanda pressed the bell, tried to force the door open, and shouted out to her mum as tears fell from her eyes.

The door to their apartment flew open.

“Wanda!” Sofia looked at her daughter in bewilderment.

“Mum,” Wanda said, rushing in and hugging her. Joy and relief at seeing her mum alive filled Wanda.

“Are you all right?” Sofia’s eyes scanned her from head to toe.

“What happened to your phone?” Wanda asked.

“I can't find it. I’ve been looking for it. I went out a few hours ago, and I lost it.” Sofia placed her hand on her daughter's back, and they hugged each other tightly. Suddenly, Sofia's tone changed. “Where . . . where is your brother?”

Wanda heard the panic already in her mum's voice, though Wanda had not mentioned that Jason was missing. Sofia pulled away from the hug and held Wanda by the shoulders.

“Where is Jason?” Sofia said, looking directly at Wanda.

More tears gathered in Wanda's eyes.

“I . . . I don't know, Mum—I looked everywhere for him . . .”

“What do you mean?” Sofia raised her voice.

“Easy, Sofia,” a man’s voice said.

For the first time, Wanda noticed Bathe as he pushed away from the drawer he leaned against, positioned under their window.

Wanda was happy to see him. He had been there for them since her dad died. Bathe looked older than his forty years, with several gray hairs on his head and a wrinkled forehead. He was big but not